Socialism means the abolition of private property, profit, and voluntary exchange. It means the organization of the production and distribution of goods and services—that is, of the fruits of human invention, innovation, thought, risk, talent, and labor—by political planners who allegedly know both what people need and how to satisfy that need. It means the expropriation and allotment of wealth according to those planners’ sense of value. Socialism may be understood by any child. It is taking other people’s stuff. It is also the rash and ignorant slaughter of the goose that lays the golden eggs.

That seems like a perfect description to me—for socialists are like children. They believe that they have a right to anything that they like and—just like a child—they have absolutely no appreciation of the effort, intelligence and sacrifice that goes into producing the toys that they demand.

As such, it is not libertarians who are childish (as this prat at Liberal Conspiracy contended), but socialists. Libertarians are the ones who are adult enough to realise that nothing comes for free and that to steal—or to compel others to steal on your behalf—the fruit of another man's labour is wrong.

It is the socialists—kicking and screaming for toys, regardless of price—who are the children. And they are not even nice, well-behaved children: no, they are more like Spoilt Bastard—content to ensure that others work themselves to death as long as their own needs are satisfied.

They are entirely stupid, immature and evil. And they win, because they are the worst part of all of us and giving in to envy, bitterness and irrationalism is so very easy: as The Smiths sang, "it takes strength to be gentle and kind"...

TANSTAAFL as Robert Heinlein put it many years ago: There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. He was slamming this shit before I was born in books like Starship Troopers (not the silly film).

On the subject of books, Devil, have you read 'The Fallout: How a Guilty Liberal Lost his Innocence' by Anthony Andrew. Lot of books like this appearing as liberal lefties suddenly start realising that their club has done a complete reversal; now supporting everything they hated some decades ago (like a certain fascist, patriarchal, murderous religion).

"Lot of books like this appearing as liberal lefties suddenly start realising that their club has done a complete reversal; now supporting everything they hated some decades ago (like a certain fascist, patriarchal, murderous religion)."

Good. 'More joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth..', and all that...

I picked up on the "supermarket toddler" false analogy on a comment beneath* a later post at LC.

I do wonder if it is psychological projection. These socialists are generally in denial about their murderous, spiteful and selfish creed so need to offload that elsewhere.

Socialism= Death. Socialism does not "permit" libertarians to live as libertarians, but Libertarianism has no issue with socialists being socialists by mutual consent. But then again that is not really socialism, now, is it? Socialism demands coercion and does not function by consent. Mutualism, voluntary collectives? Excellent stuff. Coercion? A pox upon it.

You can always get a rise out of socialists by pointing out that that socialism is only enforceable by the threat of violence/coercion, and all socialist countries end up as police states. Which pretty much sums up where we are now.

As Mrs.Thatcher so eloquently put it 'socialists always run out of other peoples money.' As usual when this happens,the IMF makes an appearance, the real economy is further damaged and as this is about the fourth time this has happened, I now think the damage is total and terminal.We need a clean slate, a new start.We need to remove this government and re-educate the masses. Easy to say, but if we don't, fifty years of this 'fuckwittery'is going to result in totalitarian feudal poverty for all of us.'Mad Max' becomes reality.

skills/knowledge and physical tradable assets are all that are needed.UKPLC is a business and it's bust, it's directors are guilty of fraud and money laundering.

We owe nothing to them, they owe everything they have to us.A kings head was taken due to his representatives taxing, fining and improsoning at will. We are back to the same point where the crown (the crown is not the monarch) and it's representatives have rejected LAW and embraced tryanny.

No taxation without representation, the few do not represent the will of the many.

Of course you're right. It was just the shock of seeing Mrs T being quoted. I forget there are still those who treat her as some sort of oracle.

"Do socialists always run out of other people's money?"I dunno. I've never lived under any and I don't want to get into the policies of other countries. All I know from personal experience is that Mrs T didn't seem to spend my money very wisely and brought misery into the lives of many people I knew.